Across the bridge 2

What exactly is one supposed to do when you are granted Permanent Residence status by another country? Do you send flowers and a note to the Minister of Home Affairs thanking her for her niceness and kindness? Do you tip the official who hands you the certificate with a lot of pomp and ceremony? How much is a decent “tip” for such a thing? Is it legal to tip or might it be picked up on the cctv cameras and you are accused of paying a bribe? And what are you supposed to do with the very glam looking residence certificate - printed on beautiful paper, complete with the country’s coat of arms? Do you frame it? Silver or gold? Where do you hang it, lounge or bedroom, next to your school certificates, or much closer to your children’s first photos? Or maybe you are supposed to carry it in your handbag? But it is too big, so can you fold it into your purse? Will the police want to see it when they stop you looking for “illegals”. More worryingly do you write to your country of citizenship to notify them? How does the letter read - dear Minister of Home Affairs? Or is that Foreign Affairs? Or is that the Registrar of births and deaths and all things in between? Then what else do you tell them? This is to inform you I now have another home, however please don’t take this the wrong way, I still love you, (I mean our country, not you, yourself), so please don’t revoke my citizenship.
This is my dilemma dear friends. I was finally granted permanent residency by the Government of South Africa. So let me be polite, thank you South Africa. Sadly I don’t know whose totem or clan praise poem I should recite, (on my knees?), since there are some 45 million of you. So a simple thank you will have to suffice. I am not being facetious. I am truly grateful. I have joined the ranks of the truly global citizens of the world, no longer defined, identified, and limited by one geographical boundary, which boundary my ancestors had nothing to do with. The other half of me that which I inherited from my mother’s people who came up North with the great leader Mzilikazi ka Mashobana is firmly formally recognized. I feel that I have finally broken that cage, that box, in which I was solely defined as a Karanga person, belonging only to my father’s side and never to my mother’s. As a feminist who has struggled for my right of CHOICE in many other areas of my life, this is one area that was left, and I celebrate my fulfilment of it. Having two homes means I have the choice to be in one or the other. I pick and choose how much I want to invest in each one - emotionally, financially and socially.
Being a resident of two countries is truly a privilege. It shouldn’t be like that. We talk about freedom of movement, the world being a global village, and our common humanity. Yet, each day, we put up the fences - literally and figuratively to separate us from one another. Hectares of papers, and millions of human hours are spent, tightening these fences, pushing one another out.
The privilege belongs to a select few. As single, black, African woman, I am fully aware of just how much of a mega privilege this is. My class status is what made this possible. Thousands of my fellow Zimbabweans are still stranded, they queue up for weeks on end, at Home Affairs offices looking for the right to stay and work here. Most of them have been here longer than I have. Some even qualify for citizenship given how long they have been here. But no, their papers are not in order. Their “stories” are not enough to qualify them for residence. I didn’t do anything special. I just happen to be in an economic and social bracket that made my application hassle free and more acceptable.

My friends and family are totally ecstatic on my behalf. I got flowers, chocolate, a bottle of wine, beautiful cards, e-cards, e-hugs. Several proposed a celebratory party. But I don’t feel like a party. Congratulations are not what I want to hear. For the last month, I have wept as I looked at this pretty certificate. I don’t feel ecstatic. Deep in my heart is sorrow and pain. I am happy I now have this choice. Believe me I am. I am deeply grateful to have this ability to traverse across two borders, and call both Zimbabwe and South Africa my homes. No two countries could make me happier. These two countries with their glorious histories of my ancestors and foremothers whose heroic struggles I cherish ever so.
Yet I am still deeply sad. I love the country of my birth. I will forever carry the green and gold passport of Zimbabwe to signify my real citizenship. It is the country that raised me and made me who I am today. Growing up, I never ever thought of leaving Zimbabwe, going somewhere else to study, to work or to live! Even as I got to know more and more countries, it always was the place to come back to. In the three years of my working, (not necessarily living) in South Africa, when Zimbabweans asked “how is South Africa?” I would reply, “how else can the land of others be?” It comes out with much deeper meaning in Shona or Ndebele and it’s hard to capture the nuance in English am afraid. As someone said it so beautifully, I worked and stayed in South Africa, but my heart and my head lived in Zimbabwe. I slept in Harare, but woke up in Johannesburg.
Seven years later, I deliberately applied for residence, and got it. I wanted it. In one sentence; the love of my life was no longer enough for me. I needed more. I needed other things, which she could not give me, or let me enjoy.
I feel rotten inside. I feel I have betrayed my country, slapped it in the face, thrown dirty water at it. This beautiful certificate is written proof of my betrayal and rejection of my Zimbabwe.
The residence permit couldn’t have come at a strange time, the very day I put in my resignation in my current job, and signed my new job offer! The new job will take me back to Zimbabwe, as an expatriate! Yes, I will be an expatriate in my own country of birth. What does that mean exactly? If war breaks out and I have to be “evacuated”, do I head to the South African embassy and leave my parents behind? What does that say about me? What kind of person do I become? Or when I am talking to my team mates do I say, “we Zimbabweans”, or I adopt the rather derogatory, “you people”? The books and academics say we all have multiple identities. How does one carry them all equally? How do I find the true me, in these many identities?
When I called my mum to tell her I was coming back home, she kept silent for a few minutes, and I know she was stifling her sobs. Why? She wanted to know. Why come back to Zimbabwe? To do what? Did I not know the elections are coming again soon? What about money? How would I make enough to survive, to look after her and my dad? She told me their medical bills had gone up. Loud hint - will you afford to keep up our insurance if you come back? She continued to scare me about the ever increasing power cuts, the water cuts, the scarcity of firewood.
This is what makes me deeply sad. When a mother would rather their child goes far away, than be close enough to share the love and care, what can one do besides weep for what was, could be, and should be? My parents are both in their late 70s. I want to be near them to fix their broken windows, take them to their doctors’ appointments and see them as often as possible. I am sure they want that too, but they are afraid. So they would rather I am away from the ‘troubles’. When a country begins to “sell” its own children, then we have to mourn. Deeply so.
So back to my earlier questions - how am I supposed to behave differently now that I am a permanent resident? Is there some South African rite of passage that I must go through to show I am HERE? I am too old for the reed dance, (which I would never have done anyway). Am I required to choose between Kaizer chiefs and Orlando pirates football clubs? I still don’t know the difference between them by the way. I already have a favourite radio station, Kaya fm, so I am ahead on that one. Ditto favourite newspapers, the Sunday Times and the Mail and Guardian. Should I do the dailies too? Do I use Zambuk instead of Vaseline on my lips? There are some things I won’t do though- rugby, cricket, and saying, “Jane, he is not here”.
For the next few weeks, I think I will carry around my framed residence certificate and show it to all those who used to treat me badly and tell me to go back home; the taxi drivers, that nasty woman in the snooty shoe shop in Hyde Park, the other one in Pick and Pay who throws my change at me when I don’t speak Sesotho, the bank teller who gets so weary when she has to deal with my special account, and oh yes, the really mean security guard in our building! I will shove my residence permit in their faces and say, see I am one of you now. This is my home too!